On March 7, US Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman announced a new proposal for uniform and consistent national standards for organic food. This proposal would establish a clear national organic standard that reflects concerns expressed in the more than 250,000 comments received after the initial organic proposal made in December 1997. Briefly, the new standards would ban the use of genetic engineering, sewage sludge, and irradiation in food marked organic, and set minimum content levels for products labeled as organic. Users can read the full text of the proposal by chapter or in its entirety and view a host of related items at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Organic Program (NOP) Website.